The testing of hypotheses relevant to learning and memory in the aged has relied heavily on the use of verbal material presented either visually or auditorily. Other sources of sensory input have not been in the forefront of research. This is especially true for the investigation of motor behavior even though a substantial number of studies have been conducted using motor responses with elderly subjects. That is, those studies have not been incorporated within the framework of contemporary motor theory and they have lacked the unification and direction that such theory would provide. Extending memory research to the motor realm would also offer certain methodological advantages over the verbal response class. The current theories of motor memory and learning of Adams (1971) and Schmidt (1975) are closed-loop and stress the role of error detection and correction. The overall objective of the proposed research is to begin to understand the influence of aging on the functioning of these mechanisms. The proposed studies are concerned with obtaining basic comparative data on the error detection and correction performance of three age groups: young, middle-aged, and elderly adults. The first study will vary age, gender, and discriminability of alternatives on a motor error detection task, while the second will vary age, gender, and degree of experimenter supplied error on a motor error correction task. Both studies will make use of a linear displacement apparatus, and will involve either a forced-choice recognition response or a subject error correction response. The two studies will not only be investigating the effects of aging on the closed-loop mechanisms mentioned above, but will also be evaluating the advantage of motor over verbal responses for certain memory task situations, as suggested in the recent publication by Marshall and Elias (1981).